Pedagogical Application of International Rhetoric

Haksun Han
(Kyungnam University, Korea)

Abstract: The West has seen its logic as universal, requiring other cultures to understand its doctrines in the way westerners do. To avoid the propensity toward the Western rhetoric, people in the empowering countries ought to shift their perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new concept, International Rhetoric (IR) and apply it to pedagogy. I struggled to define it from the multicultural perspectives based on modernism and postmodernism, presenting contextualization and de-centeredness as the terms characterizing IR. To set up a theoretical framework for pedagogical adaptation of IR, constructivism and Vygotskian socio-cultural theory were studied. Through the study of process and post-process theory, it was discussed how IR has been applied to the ESL settings and how it has to be applied to a Korean setting for further education. Macroscopically, this paper was designed to shift views of those involved in SLA toward L2 learners from deficient to multi-competent, drawing a full and sincere understanding. Microscopically, it was intended to shift the views of policy makers as well as native people toward multiethnic families from “them” to “us”, aiding them in making a right decision to establish educational policies of Korea and provide consistent and organized support.

Key words: international rhetoric, contextualization, decenteredness, pedagogy, multiculture